THE PLAINS, Ohio — Spectators lined North Plains Road in The Plains last Sunday afternoon for the annual community parade celebrating local Native American mounds. Families gathered as area veterans, pageant queens, first responders and members of the Athens High School band marched during the final day of the weekend-long festival.
Tracing its origins to the early 1980s, The Plains Indian Mound Festival hosts vendors, food trucks, local organizations and a children’s talent competition to build community and help spread knowledge of the mounds.
Members of The Plains Lions Club, alongside the nonprofit group Friends of The Plains Mounds, organize the yearly festival featuring three days of performances and family-friendly events, such as free pony rides for children.
The Wolf Plains Group, a collection of about 30 earthworks built thousands of years ago by the Adena culture, is a local archeological treasure and demonstrates The Plains’ Indigenous peoples’ history.
While only a few of the mounds remain intact and visible after years of development, Friends of The Plains Mounds seeks to preserve what’s left through educational tours and the annual festival. The mounds were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.
“I can’t tell you how many people have walked up to my booth and asked, ‘Why is it called the Mounds Festival?’” said Sandy James, a longtime crafts vendor at the festival and the treasurer of the nonprofit mounds organization.
James said the Friends of The Plains Mounds, which has about 60 members, formed a few years ago out of a need to protect the earthworks from destruction. She described the annual festival as key to that mission.
“People start asking more questions,” James said. “It enables us to educate them and then they can help us in the preservation.”
Bill Snider, a resident of The Plains and member of The Plains Lions Club, first became involved in the festival as a mounds tour guide during its early years.
“Most of the [mounds] are hidden on The Plains,” Snider told the Independent, describing them as important to “the heritage of our local community.”
In addition to advocating for the protection of cultural artifacts, the festival also offers opportunities for young women and girls in the area.
Tami Dupler-Blake, a resident of Longstreth in Hocking County, organizes a queens program that gathers pageant contestants to be cultural ambassadors for their region. She told the Independent she was recruited by The Plains Lions Club to start the program in early 2010.
“They get to travel all over Ohio representing their community,” she said.
According to Dupler-Blake, the festival offers three “royalty” programs: a “little miss” category for girls ages six to eight, a “junior miss” category for ages nine to 13, and a queens program for ages 14–19.
Duper-Blake said that, between all three categories, the festival welcomed 34 contestants this year.
“In Southeast Ohio, these are big numbers for pageants because it’s just so hard to get contestants anymore,” Duper-Blake said.
While the festival has been held for more than 40 years, Snider said that The Plains Lions Club has fewer active members — about 20 total — to help keep it running each year.
“Unfortunately, most of us are old,” Snider said. “We are doing our best to find more people — and younger people — to help keep the festival going.”
